Federal agents are once again busy cleaning up the streets of Venice, California. No, they're not taking out sophisticated cocaine smuggling operations or prostitution rings. They're dismantling an underground syndicate of raw milk pushers and connoisseurs that operate under a front called Rawesome Foods.

In a daring raid last summer, federal agents swooped down on the Rawesome Foods storefront and confiscated illegal stockpiles of raw honey, milk and cane syrup. In a follow up raid yesterday, Rawesome Foods owner James Cecil Stewart was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit a crime, and is being held on $123,000 bail. Two other employees were also arrested.

In the raid last year, one Rawesome Foods volunteer, clearly flabbergasted, told the Los Angeles Times, "I still can't believe they took our yogurt." But this time they not only took the yogurt, they took Mr. Stewart, Sharon Palmer, and Eugenie Bloch. Let this serve as a warning to unpasteurized milk cartels everywhere — the feds will find you, and you will pay.

[LAT, Huffington Post; image via Flickr/kthread]